3/6/2012 Council Preview

Possibly a short night, except for the lead-up.

We start the evening with two different closed sessions.  The first involves ongoing labor negotiations with the Communication Officers Association.  The second involves more Downtown stuff.  Then it’s on to the general meeting.

Big consent calendar with some interesting items.  Various contracts and the usual stuff.  Staff is proposing rejecting bids for the Mary Overpass EIR.  Basically, staff looked at our list of projects and suggested at the strategic planning session that we could accomplish more if we take on the Monster Interchange before we take on the Mary Overpass.   During the strategic planning session, staff said that if we’re doing the Monster Interchange first, the EIR would probably need to be delayed, because otherwise that report would likely become stale before work could actually start on the overpass.  There seemed to be consensus at that meeting, so this is the next step in that process.  I don’t know if it will survive the consent calendar, though – it seems big enough that it may get pulled by a colleague or member of the public.  Another interesting one is a proposed change to the way that developers do traffic studies.  Currently, they pick a traffic consultant, order the study, and present it to us.  It is proposed that the city instead pick the consultant, order the study, and bill the developer for the result.

Then it’s on to business.  Item 2 is a discussion of Governor Brown’s Pension Reform Proposal, the 12-point plan that’s in the news, and what the impact would be to the city if it was approved.  There will likely be a lot of discussion about the fiscal state of the city, if the RTC is any indication.

Item 3 brings back an oldie but a goodie – considering moving to even-year elections.  I expect this to stir up a lot of discussion.

And that’s it.  Lots of opining in this week’s meeting, would be my guess.

Comments are closed.